The Suicide Myth
Gender ideologues use the threat of suicide to coerce parents into accepting dangerous and radical interventions for their children. Parents are admonished to deny reality and accept their child as the opposite sex, and threatened that if they don’t their child will estrange, or even kill themself. This narrative has been proven false and harmful, and is now rejected by healthcare experts in Europe, but continues to hold sway in America. The only research that exists on the link to suicide shows that co-existing mental health challenges, which are very common in trans-identified young people, not a transgender identity, explains the elevated risk for suicidal behavior. Thankfully, this risk is still very low.
​
Some of us have been asked, in front of our children, “Would you rather have a live son or a dead daughter?” We know that every suicide is tragic, but being threatened with the suicide of a child is coercive. It’s emotional blackmail, and it has to stop.
​​​
​​​​
-
-
Summary of conclusions
-
The data do not support the claim that there has been a large rise in suicide in young gender dysphoria patients at the Tavistock.
-
The way that this issue has been discussed on social media has been insensitive, distressing and dangerous, and goes against guidance on safe reporting of suicide.
-
The claims that have been placed in the public domain do not meet basic standards for statistical evidence.
-
There is a need to move away from the perception that puberty-blocking drugs are the main marker of non-judgemental acceptance in this area of health care.
-
We need to ensure high quality data in which everyone has confidence, as the basis of improved safety for this at risk group of young people.
-
-
-
-
A recent Finnish study found that suicide among youth with gender dysphoria is extremely rare and most likely related to underlying psychological problems.
-
-
-
Conclusion:
-
Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.
-
Findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.​
-
-
-
-
Data from the world’s largest clinic for trans-identified youth over an 11-year period shows the proportion of individual patients who died by suicide was 0.03%. “The fact that deaths were so rare should provide some reassurance to transgender youth and their families….” It is irresponsible to exaggerate the prevalence of suicide.
-
-
The Contagion of Suicidal Behavior
-
​"Evidence has accumulated to support the idea that suicidal behavior is “contagious” in that it can be transmitted, directly or indirectly, from one person to another (Gould, 1990)."
-
-
-
“As far as I know there are no studies that say that if we don’t start these kids immediately on hormones when they say they want them that there are going to commit suicide…. So that’s misguided…in terms of needing to intervene medically to prevent suicide and doing it quickly. I know of no studies that have shown that.”
-
-
Dr. Rittakerttu Kaltiala, The Free Press, October 30, 2023.
-
​“I am also disturbed by how gender clinicians routinely warn American parents that there is an enormously elevated risk of suicide if they stand in the way of their child’s transition. Any young person’s death is a tragedy, but careful research shows that suicide is very rare. It is dishonest and extremely unethical to pressure parents into approving gender medicalization by exaggerating the risk of suicide.
-
-
-
​People who have undergone cross-sex surgery are over 19 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population.
-
-
Affirmative "Care" Reinforces Suicidality
-
"The statement “If you do not affirm a person’s new gender identity or the person will kill themselves.” goes against everything the mental health profession has been preaching for over 30 years."​
-
-
Pediatric Gender Medicine and the Moral Panic Over Suicide
-
"The affirm-or-suicide mantra has become the central strategy of contemporary transgender activism, and at times it would seem that activists have little else in their rhetorical arsenal."
-
"Despite the unwaveringly confident manner in which these claims are often asserted, there is no good evidence that failing to “affirm” minors in their “gender identity” will increase the likelihood of them committing suicide.'
-
-
-
"Decades of research suggest that suicide is a socially contagious behavior, especially in youth. In 1994, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a document titled “Suicide Contagion and the Reporting of Suicide: Recommendations from a National Workshop.”​
-
"To be clear, evidence exists that youth who identify as transgender and feel acute distress over their bodies, especially around puberty, have higher rates of both suicide and suicidality (the latter referring to thoughts of suicide as well as nonlethal self-harm without an intent to die) than population-matched controls. Thankfully, however, actual suicide in this population remains extremely rare. A U.K. study found that the suicide rate among clinic-referred transgender-identified youth was 0.03 percent, or four deaths out of 15,000 gender-distressed minors."
-
-
The Emotional Blackmail of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’
-
​"Anecdotal experience shows that suicide rates are not reduced by affirming a new gender identity, rather, the mental health of the young person declines. In some cases, there is an initial “euphoria” (a term more widely used by trans influencers), especially if they gain attention and status, but eventually that feeling fades and the underlying issues the person had been avoiding are still there. "
-